Defending boundaries

I’ve been thinking this week about boundaries. Personal boundaries — how we set them (or fail to) and how, even when we think we’ve established our boundaries firmly, other people try to override them.

I got onto this topic while writing my current S.W.A.T. magazine article. (Shameless plug: It’s called “Charles Manson, Me, and the TSA,” and if that title intrigues you, you’ve got time to subscribe to the ‘zine, because the piece is scheduled appear in March (in the April 2011 issue). If you’ll remind me, I’ll post the article here once it’s appeared in S.W.A.T..)

Manson bent — and the TSA bends — individuals to their will in part by violating sexual boundaries — by stripping away morality, modesty, and personal judgment and replacing those self-driven characteristics with mere obedience. In Manson’s case, he turned “nice” young women into killers. The TSA aims lower; it wants only harmless drones.

Of course, most boundary violations are less grotesque than Manson’s or Napolitano-Chertoff’s (he of the Rape-i-Scanner lobbying).

If you frequently find yourself committing to do jobs you’d rather not, you’ve got boundary issues. If somebody gets away with constantly belittling you … boundary issue. If you feel you have to do something just because someone else will be disappointed in you if you don’t … boundary issue. If you feel you have to “comply” with unjust authority when your higher self tells you that a free person wouldn’t so easily give in … boundary issue.

Among the touchy-feely set, there’s a lot of talk about setting boundaries. Some of it is so fuzzy-wuzzy it’s like gagging on a tribble. Some is sensible and useful, like this advice directed toward abused men and this solid stuff aimed at protecting ourselves from pressures in the business world.

I even found a site whose article about boundary issues challenged one of my boundaries: Oprah.com (you just knew Oprah would have something about boundary-setting, didn’t you?) has an article on the subject that pops up near the top of Google results. But when I go to that page using Firefox with NoScript enabled, I get a completely blank screen. Just white. Seems that you have to enable JavaScript merely to look at an Oprah.com article. And sorry, but even though I really don’t think sweet old Oprah is going to do anything malicious to my computer, I ain’t enabling JavaScript unless a site persuades me that there’s good good reason to. And a blank screen persuades me only that the site designers are as stupid as rocks. Ah well.

But here’s the thing. There’s a lot of perfectly good, commonsense advice about setting boundaries. There’s very little about the endless battle to defend boundaries once we’ve set them.

Boundaries are particularly difficult for a lot of women. Or for anybody who was abused or belittled when growing up. It takes moxie to nerve ourselves to the point of saying to somebody, “Here’s my line. Respect it. Do not cross it.”

We work up all that nerve. We fear that we’ll lose a friend or make our boss mad or get in some kind of trouble when we finally work up the courage to set our boundary. We enter the situation shaking in our metaphoric boots. We take a deep breath. We make our position known.

To our relief, the boundary violator commonly says, “Oh. Definitely. I understand. Thank you for being so clear. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

We walk away relieved, happy, strong. (“I am person; hear me roar.”)

Then comes suckitude.

We find out that merely setting or stating the boundary is futile. The person who has been crossing our line — whatever our line may be — continues to push past it as if we never said a thing.

The friend who constantly imposes on our time keeps dropping in without notice. The boss who asks us to bend our ethics keeps nudging us to fudge our principles. The spouse who belittles us keeps on digging at our soul. The census taker shows up at our door after the fifth time we’ve said NO. The volunteer coordinator who keeps asking us to do just one more itty-bitty “Oh, I know you said … and I’m sorry to impose … but this won’t take up more than a few minutes of your time” task keeps asking. Oh so politely. But still asking, even after you’ve laid down what you thought was a very firm NO.

Since it took so much guts to set and state the boundary in the first place, it’s easy to fall into one of two reactions. Either we say, “OMG, boundary setting just doesn’t work! I give up!” or we get tough and kick the offending person out of our life.

Sometimes kicking the person out is the only way — or the smartest way — to go. Sometimes — as in the case of TSA agents, cops, or other anointed-by-the-state boundary violators, avoidance is (for most people) the most prudent course.

But sometimes you simply have to nerve up and lay that boundary down all over again. The person violating your boundary is in your life, for good or ill. You can’t afford to give up that job. You can’t avoid flying. You don’t want to get a divorce. You know you’re going to see that cop or bureaucrat whether you choose to or not. The friend who’s being such an ass about that one thing is a gem in a thousand other ways. You must not only set the boundary again; you must let them know that there will be consequences if they continue to trespass. And mean it.

So the question is: How do you defend that boundary without constant spirit-sapping stress or perpetual and unacceptable risk?

And here I stop. There will be a Part II to this topic. Shortly, I hope. But first … what are your techniques for defending personal boundaries that you’ve set? (Yes, I hope to mine the best responses for that Part II. The commenters on this blog are often just plain damn brilliant. But I’ve had to deal with this lately myself, so I’m saving up some ideas of my own.)